House condemns Goldstone

WASHINGTON (JTA) — The U.S. House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to condemn the Goldstone report.

The vote Tuesday, urging the Obama administration to keep the report accusing Israel and Hamas of war crimes in last winter’s Gaza war from advancing through the U.N. system, passed 344 to 36 with 22 voting "present."

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which lobbied hard for the non-binding resolution, said it "strongy applauds" its passing. "Congress is sending a strong message that the United States will not agree to turn the victim into the perpetrator," AIPAC said.

The vote comes on the eve of debate on the report in the U.N. General Assembly; the report already has been endorsed by the U.N. Human Rights Council.

The resolution "calls on the President and the Secretary of State to continue to strongly and unequivocally oppose any endorsement of the ‘Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict’ in multilateral fora, including through leading opposition to any United Nations General Assembly resolution and through vetoing, if necessary, any United Nations Security Council resolution that endorses the contents of this report."

The resolution was introduced by U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), the senior Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.), its chairman.